Poems by Sally Nacker
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Saying Goodbye
by Sally Nacker
From Canary Spring 2023
Sally lives a quiet life in a small house in the woods of Redding, Connecticut, part of the Norwalk River Watershed. Here one finds wetlands, streams, ponds, trees, the Norwalk River flowing south to Long Island Sound, and wildlife.
If my heart arrests, let it keep arresting.
I kept thinking of your willed words
as I walked one last time that spring
to your summerhouse. Birds
hopped and sang in the thickets on either side
of Veery Lane. The green
world trembled so bright I cried.
At the end of the long lane
the small, screened-in wood
house stood. Something fluttered inside it
like a large moth, or could
it be a bird, I thought
as I came closer. I saw then—
its nervous movement through the screen—
a little brown house wren.
I propped the door open between
the green world and the world inside,
stepped in, and drew
close to the frightened thing, tried
to guide it toward and through
the opening. I could tell
the wren’s small heart was beating
wildly, could see its little eyes, so gentle.
Then off it flew into the trembling.
© Sally Nacker